YOU ONLY HAVE 18 DAYS TO GET YOUR PROJECTS ENTERED INTO TURNING CONTEST. ALL INFORMATION CAN BE FOUND BY CLICKING ON THE WOODCRAFT/EASY WOOD TOOLS BANNER AT THE TOP OF THIS PAGE. REALLY GREAT PRIZE!!

Well, finally got a few days in the shop and finished up my pepper grinders, salt cellars and a rolling pin.

There were a total of five salt/pepper combinations but one was given as a belated wedding present before this picture was taken. I really need to build a light tent/box to improve the pictures.

In the middle of the sanding of these, David Reed Smith's news letter arrived and spurred me to create a better method of finishing the bottoms of the lids and bowls. Previously, they were held with a stationary jig and finished with a random orbital sander. Mr. Smith's newsletter showed various methods of making jigs for round objects. Modifying my Nova chuck, with new jaws, yielded a way to turn/sand the parts more efficiently.

A plywood circle and oak jaws.

Removed tho metal jaws and screwed the new jaws in place

Turned a tapered lip at the outer edge to lock the pieces into place.

Made the jaws in one piece, marked the holes, drilled and mounted to be certain every thing lined up. Turned everything flat and true. Turned the lip. Then quartered the piece on the bandsaw to make the four separate jaws. The most difficult part of the build was laying out the holes to match the chuck screw holes. The range of close to open on this chuck is about 3/4" but it is enough to allow both the lid and bowl to be done without separate jaw sets.

Here's a link to Mr. Smith's newsletter-

http://www.davidreedsmith.com/Articles/ShadowSphereJig/ShadowSphereJig.htm

Although his newsletter was illustrating a "Shadow Sphere" turning, there is so much more shown. In one picture, you can see some of his home made hollowing tools and at the end of the article there are quite a few different jigs shown for holding round objects.

Safe turning!

 

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Lew Kauffman-
Wood Turners Forum Host

Time traveler. Purveyor of the world's finest custom rolling pins!

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Lew Kauffman-
Wood Turners Forum Host

Time traveler. Purveyor of the world's finest custom rolling pins!

Love the work Lew, One of these days i hope to be able to make turnings as good as yours

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Charles Nicholls
Site Host
nicholls61@att.net
Proud supporter of The Wounded Warrior Project, Homes For Our Troops and the NRA

Great looking projects Lew. You do some very nice work.

Excellent work in the jaws. I got to read and save that article.

Thanks for sharing it with us.

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John Moody
Site Administrator


John Moody Woodworks
http://www.johnmoodywoodworks.com

Lewis

Great post love those homemade chuck jaws. 

Just a quick question. When starting a new turning out of a rough piece of stock ( for example, a roughly rounded blank). What do you work on first? I always tried to round the length of the piece before working on the top or bottom

thanks.

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No greater Loves than God, Family, Friends, country, the sight of flying chips and the smell of saw dust.

I always round (true up) the piece first, that way you can see any imperfections and cracks that you have to get rid of or work around. The image below shows a weakness that I had to decide to leave or turn off. If i had turned that away of course it would have totally destroyed the look of the piece so I left it in, some of these you can't see without truing it up first.

 
Russell Brechlin said:

Lewis

Great post love those homemade chuck jaws. 

Just a quick question. When starting a new turning out of a rough piece of stock ( for example, a roughly rounded blank). What do you work on first? I always tried to round the length of the piece before working on the top or bottom

thanks.

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No greater Loves than God, Family, Friends, country, the sight of flying chips and the smell of saw dust.

Russell,

Exactly right- rounding a piece along the length, first, will lessen the vibration and stress on the lathe. 

Russell Brechlin said:

Lewis

Great post love those homemade chuck jaws. 

Just a quick question. When starting a new turning out of a rough piece of stock ( for example, a roughly rounded blank). What do you work on first? I always tried to round the length of the piece before working on the top or bottom

thanks.

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No greater Loves than God, Family, Friends, country, the sight of flying chips and the smell of saw dust.

Lewis and Charles, 

I agree with both of you on truing the length first. 

If you watch the video on the "Turning and Coring with Mike Ellison" blog.  It shows him working on the bottom of the blank first.

So i thought this might bring up some good discussion on the "why' and why not."

Not only saving the wear and tear on the lathe, but as a matter of safety.  A piece wobbling around on the lathe can more easily be dislodged from the chuck. 

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No greater Loves than God, Family, Friends, country, the sight of flying chips and the smell of saw dust.

Exactly, it is a shear matter of safety, first and foremost, and also allows you to see better what you are working with so that you can get a better feel for what you want to make. I did have a piece once that was so out of balance that it nearly turned the lathe over, even at only 650rpm (the slowest my lathe will go) so I had to use the band saw to cut the one piece down before mounting it.

Some people get a pre conceived plan on what they want to make, while others let the wood "speak to them" and let them know what should be made as they turn the waste away.

It also helps to know what you have left when you true up the wood and get rid of the imperfections to decide then what can be made from it. Wormy wood for example can be often made into a pen, but you really can't see for sure that you can use that particular piece for a pen until you get it turned to near the thickness for that pen. I was once going to make a pen from wormy wood, but as i got close to the pens diameter on the wood, I realized that there was a worm hole that had traveled diagonally through the wood and the hole then was half the length of the blank, I had to toss that pice because it was not structurally sound enough to use. Anyway, i'm getting long winded again lol sorry.

I'll watch that video, thanks.

 

Ok first thought on that video, I personally would not worry so much about the "core" of the piece until I was to get the outer portion more round and stable. In this video he is really fighting it because of that.
 
Russell Brechlin said:

Lewis and Charles, 

I agree with both of you on truing the length first. 

If you watch the video on the "Turning and Coring with Mike Ellison" blog.  It shows him working on the bottom of the blank first.

So i thought this might bring up some good discussion on the "why' and why not."

Not only saving the wear and tear on the lathe, but as a matter of safety.  A piece wobbling around on the lathe can more easily be dislodged from the chuck. 

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No greater Loves than God, Family, Friends, country, the sight of flying chips and the smell of saw dust.

+1

Lewis Kauffman said:

Russell,

Exactly right- rounding a piece along the length, first, will lessen the vibration and stress on the lathe. 

Russell Brechlin said:

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Lew Kauffman-
Wood Turners Forum Host

Time traveler. Purveyor of the world's finest custom rolling pins!

Maybe if the piece to be turned was going to include some of the original "live" portions of the wood, this approach may be needed. In this video, however, the piece was eventually turned to be concentric with the lathe center line. My approach would have been to round the piece first, thus avoiding some of the vibration. As for dislodging from the chuck, the piece looks like it was screwed to a face plate so this would lessen that possibility. I would never try it between centers or with a jawed chuck. The risk of dislodging would be very real.

Russell Brechlin said:

Lewis and Charles, 

I agree with both of you on truing the length first. 

If you watch the video on the "Turning and Coring with Mike Ellison" blog.  It shows him working on the bottom of the blank first.

So i thought this might bring up some good discussion on the "why' and why not."

Not only saving the wear and tear on the lathe, but as a matter of safety.  A piece wobbling around on the lathe can more easily be dislodged from the chuck. 

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No greater Loves than God, Family, Friends, country, the sight of flying chips and the smell of saw dust.